


Keep me close (love me most)

by deepestbluest



Category: Naruto
Genre: Getting Together, Let’s pretend college looks like this, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestbluest/pseuds/deepestbluest
Summary: Parties are all well and good until you fall in love with the guy you’re telling yourself isn’t your best friend.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Maito Gai | Might Guy
Comments: 22
Kudos: 150





	Keep me close (love me most)

**Author's Note:**

> As a content warning: there are two mentions of Kakashi’s father having committed suicide
> 
> ETA: Apparently, I posted this twice, so I deleted the second version. Sorry about any confusion!
> 
> The title is from "Someone to Stay" by Vancouver Sleep Clinic

In Kakashi’s defense, stealing the tractor hadn’t been his idea. Obito had called him a coward, though, so Kakashi had taken it for a spin. He’d put it back when he was done and left some money so the farmer could refill the tank. Admittedly, he’d been drunk off his ass so it might have been his spare change from buying drinks.

Top of his class, the son of a war hero, even a disgraced one… a little motorized indiscretion isn’t unreasonable.

Maybe, he reflects, that’s why he just got community service.

Or, he reconsiders as the guy he’s picking up litter with yells about collecting every piece for the third time in five minutes, the judge knew who he’d be working with and figured it would be a worse punishment than any fine or lifetime sentence could match.

Forced to wander over to put his collected garbage in the bag, Kakashi makes the mistake of looking the guy in the eyes.

Two unmistakable eyes look back, and Kakashi could kick himself for not paying attention to the rising excitement in the voice that’s been yelling ever since Kakashi arrived half an hour late.

“Finally, you acknowledge me!” Guy grins, undoubtedly thrilled to have an orange vest that doesn’t quite match his leg warmers. “Have you come to challenge me to see who can collect the most litter before we have to leave?”

_“Have to leave”. How can he find everything worthwhile?_

Kakashi doesn’t bother hiding his sigh. “Hello, Guy. I’m here on court ordered community service. Which you know because I’m wearing the same orange vest you are.”

Guy nods as if Kakashi said something wise. “I take it you’re still a fashion coward. What did you do to earn community service? Did you try to outclimb Obito again?”

Kakashi hadn’t _tried_ to outclimb Obito. He _had_ outclimbed him.

The distinction is one Guy would approve of, and that’s exactly why Kakashi doesn’t tell him.

“I stole a tractor and got caught driving it on the road. That’s illegal, apparently,” Kakashi drawls. Guy nods along approvingly, and despite knowing better, Kakashi asks, “Why are you here?”

Guy laughs, loud and long and, oddly for him, false. “I hit an upperclassman with that carton of spoiled milk that’s been sitting in Asuma’s fridge for six months.”

“That’s…” Funny. Hateful. Inspired. Unusually mean-spirited for Guy. “Why?”

“Because I’m in my prime and he was harshing my mellow!”

The usual irrepressible energy Guy radiates is conspicuously missing.

Kakashi doesn’t miss it.

“You should pick a more up to date reference,” he advises. “And a believable one. You’ve never been mellow in your life. Your dad showed me pictures of you as a baby at graduation.”

Why Dai did that is a mystery no human can or should solve.

It probably has something to do with the absence of Kakashi's own parents and the fact that too many of Dai’s mountain of pictures of Guy after age four seem to feature Kakashi. Some don't even feature Guy at all.

But the exact reason, like the cause of the familial bad taste in clothes, is a mystery.

Guy grins at him; here, at last, is the joy Kakshi has been trying to dodge for most of his life. “An assessment only my true rival would make! Unfortunately, Kakashi, you’re wrong! There’s one time when I’m absolutely mellow!”

Too late, Kakashi sees the trap he’s walked into. “I changed my mind!” he calls over his shoulder, retreating to the other side of the road as quickly as he can. “It’s fine! I can guess!”

Guy, whose cruelty and decibels know no bounds, shouts, “It’s after I get off! Even youth has to rest sometimes, Kakashi!”

⁂

They’re drunk in someone else’s dorm room, taking a momentary break from the party, when Guy says, “He called me ugly.”

Kakashi, who’s hammered on Fireball and hasn’t spoken to Guy in a week, turns to him and asks, very coherently, “Huh?”

Guy, who isn’t hammered on Fireball but did risk Genma’s "microbrew" and is sitting on the floor next to Kakashi’s chair as he rightly suffers for thinking Genma wouldn’t make something terrible, says, “The upperclassman I hit with spoiled milk. He called me ugly.”

It takes a few moments for that to sink in. Kakashi struggles with the information for a while and decides the only way to verify who's right is to check for himself.

Twisting in his chair, Kakashi squints at Guy. “Stop moving.”

“I’m not. You had five shots, Kakashi.”

_Ah._

“Well… That’s more than you, so I win.”

He waves a hand at Guy, only for his palm to smack into Guy's nose.

“Ow!”

“Stop moving! I can’t check if you’re ugly if I can’t see you, dumbass.”

Kakashi has known Guy for almost as long as he’s known himself. He hasn't bothered to really look at Guy since they first met and he recognized that Guy is kind of weird. Maybe that was his attitude, though?

Squinting down at Guy’s face, Kakashi reevaluates the strange man he’s been roped into competing against.

“Hm.”

Guy squints up at him. “Don’t hum like that!” His face twists unhappily, so Kakashi has to take Guy's face in both hands to keep him still.

“Didn't I just tell you to stop moving? It’s like you want me to throw up on you.”

“I don’t!”

“Then just look at me like a normal person!”

For once, Guy goes perfectly still.

 _Yep,_ Kakashi thinks as he looks over Guy's face, _he does look strange._

Shiny bowl cut.

Thick eyebrows.

_Ah, but if you cut his hair a little and changed the eyebrows…_

The man whose face replaces Guy’s is handsome. He has Guy’s strong jaw and bright smile, the broken nose that gives his face even more character.

Kakashi physically recoils. “I don’t like that.”

Guy’s eyes- the actual Guy, the good one- flick away, but Kakashi doesn’t let him pull away.

“I’m not done.”

“Your face says you are.”

“I’m wearing a mask and a headband," Kakashi points out, speaking slowly so Guy can't misunderstand. "And I’m drunk. Don’t trust my face.”

Tilting Guy’s face, which is obligingly facing him again, Kakashi evaluates Guy as he is.

Shiny hair.

Thick eyebrows.

Broken nose.

Strong jaw.

Big muscles.

Big hands. 

Loud mouth.

Nice mouth.

Loud mouth.

Shiny bowl cut.

“You should have hit him with that water bottle,” Kakashi concludes. He lets go of Guy’s face. “The metal one with the... you know. The bathtub wine Genma says isn’t his. From, uh. From last semester? Yeah. And the milk. You should have hit him with The wine and the milk.”

The look on Guy’s face is too hopeful. Kakashi doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Why should I have done that?” Guy asks. He’s more sober than he should be, but that’s the price of picking an undrinkable drink.

Even Guy has his limits.

“Milk because he’s a dick,” Kakashi explains airily. “Water bottle because he’s wrong. Bad wine because he was a dick _and_ he was wrong. Why are you smiling like that? Don’t look so happy!”

Guy doesn't stop smiling, and Kakashi wishes he hadn't let go of him.

Whoever’s in charge of the floor’s party music changes the song to one of Kakashi’s favorites, and the spell Guy’s happiness put on him breaks.

Kakashi hops to his feet steadily and steadily makes his way into the hall, where he steadily tries to dance with the RA. Minato laughs as if Kakashi isn’t the most skilled dancer in the building and lets Kakashi dance with him until Obito and Rin come over.

In his graceful exit from the chair and headlong dive into Rin’s bag of sandwiches, Kakashi completely misses the soft, almost pained look on Guy’s face as he rejoins the party.

⁂

There’s another party on another weekend in someone’s off-campus house. There are kegs. There are cheering classmates. There are a bunch of couples hooking up.

Kakashi passed Kurenai dragging Asuka into the bathroom on the way upstairs.

Kakashi, who isn’t drunk at this party, passed her on his way to someone’s bedroom. With Guy. Who also isn't drunk.

It’s probably going to be a problem later, but Guy’s captain of the newly crowned champion judo team, a title they clinched because Guy flipped a guy like the cafeteria cooks flip the pancakes Kakashi eats off Guy’s plate every cheat day.

Funny that Kakashi liked watching that so much but is pushing Guy against a stranger’s bedroom door.

Also funny that Guy seems to have forgotten all about judo because he let Kakashi drag him through the house and pin him in place like this and hasn’t sent Kakashi flying.

Later, Kakashi is going to regret kissing Guy, and he’s going to regret not having anything to blame it on. He’s going to think about having his hand down Guy’s pants and pulling his mask down so Kakashi can kiss him, but there’s a party raging and Kakashi can’t stop thinking about somebody calling Guy ugly.

Noisy, sure.

Pushy, easily.

But ugly?

Maybe Kakashi’s just got blinders on, though. Maybe he just likes noisy, pushy guys with shiny hair and easy smiles who’ve been challenging him to do ridiculous things since their first day of school.

Maybe he likes guys who challenged him to eat a bunch of unpeeled bananas when Kakashi’s dad was dead and some of the people around them thought it was a good thing.

Maybe he likes guys whose fathers picked him up from school when they came to get their own sons.

Maybe he likes Guy.

Guy puts his hand in Kakashi’s hair and gasps, and Kakashi is going to regret this, but at least he’ll always have it.

⁂

Guy becomes an elementary school teacher. He calls Kakashi in the middle of the night and shouts, “Three point nine GPA and a student teacher position!”

Kakashi sighs and says, “Four point oh and an ANBU position,” because that’s what he does. He’s quiet and quirky, and Guy is loud and quirky.

It isn’t awkward. Guy, who’s a walking warning sign for awkwardness, doesn’t make an issue of any of it, not in the bedroom and not after. He took Kakashi’s stuttered refusal to be touched in return in stride, and without a reason to regret what they did- he'd been ready for the space between them to grow, their friendship soured like that milk, only to be reminded that Guy doesn't know how to give up friendships- Kakashi can’t wish he hadn’t towed Guy through that party and gotten him off against that stranger’s door.

Guy did have to add a brag about the choice being Kakashi’s loss, but he’d dragged Kakashi back down into the party and dared Kakashi to see who could do a better keg stand.

Kakashi had lost, but he couldn’t have admitted he’d been distracted by the echo of his name in Guy’s voice minutes earlier.

He still remembers that sound, and when he’s a faceless member of a squad, he’s going to keep it next to the noise Guy makes as he realizes Kakashi is going to be valedictorian.

⁂

Guy doesn’t comment on Kakashi’s ANBU tattoo. He doesn't try to kiss it better or worship it. He takes Kakashi's clothes off without wasting his kisses on things that won't appreciate them.

He lets Kakashi sleep on his couch when that's what Kakashi needs and in his bed when that's what Kakashi needs, and all Kakashi has to do is show up and be fussed over.

It’s a strange feeling, knowing that paying the price of admission is half of the reward.

⁂

Being a member of ANBU is killing him. Kakashi doesn’t tell anyone that; he keeps it locked away where it belongs. But it’s still killing him.

He doesn’t find out for years that Guy didn’t need to be told that ANBU work was killing him. Guy could see it, and he chose to fight for Kakashi to be let go. He even asked to take Kakashi’s place. It wasn’t a request that would ever be accepted- besides his strength, Guy doesn’t have any of the qualities that make successful ANBU- but it was a genuine one because Guy doesn’t know how to be anything else.

He’d never be a good ANBU, but Guy is a better friend than Kakashi ever will be.

Kakashi tries to be good anyway. This is one challenge Kakashi knows he’ll lose, but he’s going to fight anyway.

⁂

Kakashi goes on dates. Not with Guy- he doesn’t date Guy. He barely does more than crawl into bed next to Guy and fall asleep.

He doesn’t get very far with all these people who aren’t Guy, though. They don’t fit with him. They don’t hold his attention. He’d always rather be wherever Guy is, egging him on into doing something absurd and letting himself be egged on in return.

That’s a problem, of course, but Guy is good company. Loud, overenthusiastic company. Still better than the majority of people Kakashi has to deal with, though, so there really isn’t anything to fix about it.

⁂

Sleeping with people who aren’t Guy isn’t a mistake so much as a series of disappointments.

⁂

Kakashi gets a team of monsters. Out of ANBU and back into regular circulation, he finds himself saddled with a collection of children who make his early teamwork with Obito and Rin look smooth.

Guy laughs when he finds out who Kakashi’s teaching. Guy himself got a genius, a terrifyingly competent teenager, and a hard worker Guy is protecting in the most Guy way possible.

Kakashi shows up to one of their practice fights and merrily trots over to the spot where Guy is coaching his students. They’re running laps. Guy is doing a handstand.

“Guy… Why is that one wearing a green leotard? I know you’re fond of him, but this is excessive.”

“Lee needs a little extra support. The physical resemblance will fade in a few years. He’ll make chuunin and find his own style.” Beaming, Guy flips himself upright. “And, Kakashi?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a jumpsuit, not a leotard. You should try one. They’re very comfortable.”

He clearly means one of his.

Kakashi shakes his head sharply, both to negate Guy’s offer and to shake off the inconvenient thought that wearing Guy’s clothes might be nice. “It’s _green,_ Guy, and you paired it with _orange_ leg warmers. At least you’re helping to break gay stereotypes, I guess.”

Guy laughs, and Kakashi’s heart feels full for the first time in too long.

⁂

Obito and Rin think Kakashi is an idiot.

“Why aren't you dating him?” Obito whines, sprawled out on Kakashi’s bedroom floor. “I know you’re still hung up on me after that kiss back in the day-”

“I’m not! We were kids, and you offered to share your pink eye with me.”

“You said you didn’t want to have to come to school the next day! I was being romantic! Like Romeo and Juliet!”

“Those situations have nothing in common!”

Shaking her head, Rin takes Kakashi’s hands in hers. “You’re a little bit broken, Kakashi. Actually, a lot. Your brain is like the microwave Obito killed in our junior year because he was drunk and heating up tinfoil.”

“Can you please let that go?” Obito whines. “I thought Kakashi’s baked potato was in it.”

“No,” Rin and Kakashi say in unison.

Over the next round of Obito’s whining, Rin continues, “You’re a giant mess with a good heart, and everyone can see that. Even the kids in your study group know it. Guy knows what a mess it is up here-” she uses his own hand to point at Kakashi’s forehead “-and in here-” she uses the same hand to point at his chest “-but he looks at you like that’s fine. Be a trainwreck. Spend ten years in therapy and rebuild some things. Or don’t. You’re Hatake Kakashi, and he’s in love with you. The least you could do is kiss him.”

⁂

Kakashi doesn’t kiss Guy.

To be more accurate, he stops kissing Guy.

It isn’t punitive. He just doesn’t want to.

⁂

Guy stops looking as happy when Kakashi comes by.

⁂

Kakashi stops visiting him.

⁂

A lot of things happen, and Kakashi briefly dies.

While he’s dead, his father finds him and shakes his head. “I failed you, Kakashi.”

“For leaving me?”

“For leaving you,” Sakumo agrees. “I thought I was at least leaving you in good hands, and I was. But I didn’t remember to teach you how to make yours worthy of them.”

Kakashi blinks at him. “What are you talking about? I didn’t have anyone-”

“You had Dai and Guy. You still have them. But, Kakashi, you’re going to lose Guy if you don’t remember hands reach both ways.”

Shaking his head, Kakashi tries to remember if his father always talked in riddles. “They definitely don’t do that.”

“They do when you’re holding hands.”

Kakashi squints at the specter of his father. "What?"

"You're hurting Guy by holding his hand and trying to get away from him. Pick a future, Kakashi."

⁂

“I have a challenge for you,” Kakashi says. It’s late afternoon, and Guy’s students are out running a mission with a different teacher.

Guy looks up at him, neither unhappy nor miserable but not himself.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Kiss me.”

There, finally, is the sorrow Kakashi’s been waiting to see.

“I think I have to forfeit this one.”

“I have another.”

“Kakashi…”

“Kiss me every day for ten years and don’t get tired of it,” Kakashi says, lifting his chin. “If you get to five, I’ll let you dress me for a week.”

Guy blinks at him. “I hope you’ll talk to me about some of this one day.”

“You’re my best friend,” Kakashi reminds him. “There’s no one I’d rather talk to.”

⁂

When Kakashi does talk about it, Guy sighs and says, “I realize you did the opposite because you’re a contrary and vexing man. But why would you listen to Rin at all? She married Obito, Kakashi. Her taste is highly suspect.”

⁂

Guy makes it to five years, and Kakashi reluctantly spends spends six days in a green jumpsuit.

On the seventh day, Guy shows some restraint and settles for shaking the curtain when Kakashi’s showering and shouting, “Oh, you’re already wearing the outfit I picked out for you!”

⁂

They make it to ten years.

Kakashi kisses Guy and says, “If you get to twenty, I’ll make it worth your while.”

Guy laughs so hard the entire restaurant shoots him poisonous looks, but Kakashi doesn’t care because the ring on his fourth finger catches the light.

Its match is so familiar, Kakashi could forget he’s wearing it if Naruto didn’t constantly ask how Kakashi managed to get married.

⁂

Guy’s miniature grows up into a man who has different but still bad taste in clothes and too much heart.

Lee gets married in the desert because that’s where his husband lives, and no one bats an eye when he gets drunk and hits the dance floor in a trance.

“So,” Kakashi tells Gaara, “you got pulled in by one, too.”

Gaara nods, and for a moment, his statue-like poker face quirks into a small smile. “He told me he’d carry me across the threshold and over to our marriage bed as befits his beloved.”

Kakashi looks over at Lee, who’s swaying bonelessly, his face red and eyes glazed over.

Beside him, Guy is spinning wildly in his wheelchair. He’s going to fall out of it, but he wouldn’t be Guy if he were sitting still.

Around them, their friends are laughing and dancing.

“He’s probably going to cry when he finds out you had to carry him instead.”

Expression returning to its usual unreadable mask, Gaara says, “He would cry if that happened, yes. Which is why we’ll be sleeping on the futon instead of in our marriage bed.”

“He’s going to cry about that, too.”

“That’s true. Some of us love so much they're bound to get hurt by something.”

 _Lee’s in good hands,_ Kakashi thinks. He gives Gaara his congratulations and meanders over to Guy, who’s stopped spinning and is now in possession of a punch bowl.

“Tomorrow will make twenty years,” Guy points out. He looks ready to tip it directly into his mouth, and Kakashi forces himself not to tell him not to do it. He’ll only encourage Guy. “We’re still tied for challenges, so I think I’ll pick the next one.”

“Oh? Any chance of a preview?”

Guy beams at him and says, “Not a chance!”

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know when this is set or what kind of AU it is or if it really is one. I wrote it at 2am, and I’ve learned not to question insomnia
> 
> Kishimoto trying to tell me Guy and Lee are ugly has only fueled my conviction that they’re his greatest creations
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://asotin.tumblr.com) if you'd like to!


End file.
